Firefly--Coup de Grâce by Una McCormack

Author:Una McCormack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

Captain Reynolds still hadn’t answered my question when Zoë and that big fella Jayne came back. Their news weren’t good.

“Four of them over our side, sir,” said Zoë.

“Uh-huh,” said the captain, but his mind was still on that wretched brown coat, I could tell.

“What did you see, Mal?” said Jayne.

“Three of ’em on ours,” I said.

“Them odds ain’t good, Mal,” said Jayne. “What we gonna do?”

“Collier’s a Browncoat,” mused the captain.

I could see where this was goin’ and I did not think much of it as an idea. I looked round our position, usin’ the eyes that God gave me, and I had an idea. So I put in, “Why don’t we—”

“Sir?” said Zoë.

“Frank Collier,” said Captain Reynolds. “He fought with the Independents.”

“So?” Jayne spat on the ground. “War’s long over and I ain’t ever interested. What we need to worry about is that those fellas are shootin’ at us right now. Gorram stupid idea coming over here,” he muttered. “Walked over more or less in broad daylight. Musta seen us comin’ a mile off.”

“Thinkin’ I might go and have a word with him,” said the captain.

“What?” Jayne wasn’t happy. “Mal, that’s a dumb idea!”

I was inclined to agree, and, besides, I thought I had a pretty good idea. “All’s I want to say is—”

“Hush, please, Miss Annie!”

“You think he’d been open to listenin’, sir?”

“Thinkin’ it might be worth a try.”

“Another dumb idea on top of a whole day of dumb ideas,” grumbled Jayne. “No good ever came of walkin’. Better’n that, shoulda not bothered comin’ over here in the first place. Said we shouldn’t. Sittin’ ducks.”

“He ain’t shown us much in the way of consideration as yet, sir,” said Zoë.

“Does he know we’re on his side?”

“He ain’t on our side, Mal! Keep tryna tell you that!”

And, once again, I agreed with Jayne Cobb. Who says there’s no such thing as miracles. That darn war. Over years ago, and still these fellas talkin’ like they was still fightin’ it. I was done with all this, but nobody listens to you when you’re my age and particularly not given the way I am. They all seem to think I musta lost my brains when I lost my arm. It’s my experience that when folk don’t start listenin’ they ain’t ever gonna listen, so you may as well get on with what you think is best. I lifted up my little pistol, the one Daddy got me for my fourteenth birthday, and I fired straight at the corner of the nearest window. I’d noticed, you see, that this was a particular kind of reinforced glass, and the thing about this particular kind of reinforced glass: you shoot in the center there’s a big explosion you get yourself covered in shards and risk all manner of cuts and damage. You shoot dead on the right spot in that bottom corner and—phwock. It kinda implodes on itself. I read that on the Cortex once. There’d been a scandal; folks installin’ the stuff and then findin’ it weren’t as secure as they thought.

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